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Brendon glanced at Dallon before he spoke.
"What? I want to hear you recount the story, too! Not just her," Dallon gave a little smirk.
It had been obvious that Dallon knew the whole story, anyway.
Brendon nodded hesitantly, then continued. "You found me with another woman."
My eyes widened. I found what?!
Just as I was about to open my mouth and comment about his statement, Dallon began to wheeze, his voice vibrating off the walls. I turned to face him. What the hell did he think was so funny?
"Pardon his poor choice of wording, [y/n]," Lu began. "He did not cheat on you like he made it sound." Out of the corner of my eye I saw her pinch his ear like a scolding mother.
Somehow the atmosphere seemed too light for what was actually happening.
Dallon's suppressed laughter died down. "He meant that you caught him in the middle of an experiment. Brendon was screwing her over, not screwing her."
I stared at him dead in his eyes because of that comment, then turned my attention back to Brendon. "What kind of experiment?"
Brendon tried to look me face to face when he spoke, but he seemed to be struggling. Instead, he motioned to the gun-like machine that had been in the room the entire time.
"Oh," I said.
Suddenly, I remembered a dream that I had. One of me running into this very basement. One of me watching a girl convulsing on the floor. One of me being thrown into the same state as that girl by that very object that lay before me.
Instinctively, I took a step back from Brendon.
He looked hurt, but he didn't protest. It seemed as though he knew it would happen. "So you already regained that one, huh?"
I didn't respond. I didn't know how to.
"This thing," Brendon picked it up finally, his hand holding it limply almost like it was a piece of garbage, "is my father's creation. The project I've been raised to improve. The only reason for my existence." He looked at me seriously then, like he wanted me to know for sure he was not joking around. "If not for this thing, I'd have been dead years ago. I would have had no purpose."
My eyebrows furrowed. "You don't mean. . ."
"Yes, if I hadn't grown up to work on this project, then I would have been killed. If I hadn't had the mental capacity or stability to improve this piece of ass, I would have no reason to exist. After all, my father did invent the damn thing."
He began to curse his very existence. To everyone else it may have sounded like nothing more than gibberish, but I knew for sure, in this moment, that he wished to be born under different circumstances.
"And what I hate the most about this situation, [y/n] [l/n], is that I used this shit right in front of you without knowing it." His gaze bore holes in the gun-like machine in his hands. "Policy states that I had to use it on you. . . or kill you."
I didn't know what to say. No one else had been reacting as I had. Why the hell did they all know about this and I didn't?
Brendon moved closer to me. I forgot to step away. His gaze moved to my shoulder. "That mark. . . When I shoot someone with this, it leaves a dot."
That's where it was from? I looked around nervously. Dallon perked up, suddenly taking interest. He began listening more intently.
"There's a reason there are two dots connected, you know. It looks like a heart, but really. . ." Brendon's eyes narrowed, and I realized that may have been him considering his next words. He started over. "I know a lot of things that everyone else doesn't. I can do a lot more things. My dad taught me, not someone random. After all, my dad knew everything about this. What everyone else didn't know, was that there was a way to collect the memory-based data from your hippocampus and associated areas in your limbic system and edit them. After I edited your memories, I had to shoot you with this again to, well, give the edited information back to you."
Dallon stepped in this time. "Urie, what are you saying?! That shouldn't be possible."
"But it is." Brendon looked with strong intent at his father's creation in his hands. "After all, how else would [y/n] still have bits and pieces of her memories, but some are missing?"
I stared at the two of them, wide eyed.
Dallon's hands began to shake. "No, that's. . . that's just an error in the machine. It still has things that need to be patched up."
"Didn't you think it was too convenient that somehow all memories of me were erased in her mind, but almost everything else stayed?"
Dallon couldn't find a way to retort.
Brendon continued urgently, sloppily. "Did you also think that it was just merely coincidental that her happy memories—as long as they didn't contain me—remained, while her bad ones just disappeared?"
I looked at Brendon. He had a madness in his eyes. One that added to my fear. "Brendon, stop. . ."
Brendon either ignored me or did not hear me. "From all of this I've gathered, I assume you also thought that all of her dreams of regaining her memories were just a side effect. After all, anyone we took memories from was always immediately given them back."
"Brendon, stop it." I tried to be more forceful.
"I'll have you know, Dallon, that yes, all of this shit was my fault. I was the one who induced her memory-regaining dreams. I was the one who put an end to them after the side effects were far too bad for her to handle. But," Brendon pointed an accusatory finger at Lily, "she was the one who fucked it all up."
"Brendon! Stop it!" That seemed to get his attention. He turned to me, confusion in his eyes. "You can't. . . just rat yourself out like that. Who knows what will happen to you."
Dallon looked at Lily, alarmed. "What did she do?"
Brendon struggled before he answered, looking at me, then added a, "Sometimes a death wish is more appealing than safety, sweetheart."
Somehow, the word sweetheart stung so much.
"Lily Caldwell, age 18, an orphan who has no connection to the machine or its employees. She managed to get into the branch by blackmailing a married couple who worked under this project into adopting her and training her under government supervision. After her training period was up, both of her adopted parents 'died by automobile accident'." Lily remained stoic and unmoving, but the fingers grasping the fabric of her dress trembled. "She worked as a spy and began to go to Grandview to become friends with [y/n] where she then snuck in my house several times to observe her and me."
I swallowed a lump in my throat.
"She had noticed I had given [y/n] pills which I instructed her to take twice a day. Those pills were actually existent to reverse the memory-regaining effect. Before that, I had crushed up another pill and put it in her food. That previous pill was what made her regain her memories in her sleep." Brendon took one snide stare at Lily. "She snuck into my house and stole the memory-regaining pills, crushed them up, and put them into muffins which she gave to [y/n] as an apology gift."
I stopped Brendon. "Wait a minute, is that why I had one of those dreams again at the sleepover. Did you drug me Lily?"
She, again, looked as though she was trying very hard to keep herself composed. "To be fair, he had just admitted to doing so, too."
I shook my head. "Give me a minute, there's still so much to explain! Why was I allowed to stay with Brendon?"
"Testing purposes," Dallon stared. "But if you regained your memories, more specifically your love for Brendon, you would have been. . . let's say, confiscated."
"But why?" I asked. "What does my love for Brendon have to do with any of this?"
"There's a good reason that Brendon's mother disappeared. The same reason your mother had a heart attack in your kitchen." Lu shook her head. "It's very difficult for people with this confidential of a job to have significant others who do not work in the same line of business."
My mouth flew open. "You're saying they were. . . murdered? It was actually a ploy? There was no 'accidental death' it was all just some government set up?!"
No one responded. They all just looked at their feet or found something to distract themself.
"And the reason Brendon acted so. . . creepy, perverted, and touchy the entire time was to. . . make me not fall in love with him?"
Brendon looked into my eyes to confirm it, then he looked away.
I looked down at my hands. Unknowingly, I had clenched them until I broke skin. "And when that supposedly didn't work. . . cut off all contact with me and acted harsh."
Lily mumbled "She's not as dumb as I thought" under her breath.
I fell to my knees. "I could have been just another accidental death on the news."
"'Could have' is speaking too soon," Lu announced. "I think that's what Dallon and Lily are here for."
Dallon decided not to continue on any previous conversation. "You're telling me that not only is the bitch beside me a total fraud, but Brendon's been doing shit behind everyone's back without telling them?" I could hear the anger in his voice. I tensed up, and he grabbed me by the waist, sinking his fingernails into my sides. I yelped.
"Dallon, let her go! Fuck, Dallon, let go of her," Brendon ran over and began to struggle with the other man. I heard a girl scream behind me.
"You can't just try to escape," Lu's voice raised.
Dallon's anger blocked his wit. "You're just using us all to your advantage, aren't you, Urie?! You're keeping all of this shit from everyone, and the government knows damn well that you won't budge, so they have to keep you alive. Playing with us ends today, Brendon. The government has to get that information somehow, then you can finally rot in hell."
"I just told you all of it, so to hell if I care. Just let go of her, she's in pain, Dallon."
I was thrown forward into Brendon's grasp, my hips still stinging from the pressure. His arms wrapped around me, and I let him.
"Brendon," I whispered. "Are we going to die?"
"I won't let you, [y/n], I won't let you."
He never said a word about himself.
Oof.
Big oof.